Osaki, McGee make their return to the mound

May 6, 2014

Updated 12:00 a.m.

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Chapman pitchers Travis McGee, left, and Kevin Osaki, right, both sat out last season with injuries, each having Tommy John surgery. Theyâ€™ve both fully recovered for their senior season and have become Chapmanâ€™s two aces.
NICK AGRO
,
STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

1 of 7

Chapman pitchers Travis McGee, left, and Kevin Osaki, right, both sat out last season with injuries, each having Tommy John surgery.
NICK AGRO
,
STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

1 of 7

Chapman pitchers Travis McGee, left, and Kevin Osaki, right, both sat out last season with injuries, each having Tommy John surgery.
NICK AGRO
,
NICK AGRO

Chapman pitchers Travis McGee, left, and Kevin Osaki, right, both sat out last season with injuries, each having Tommy John surgery. Theyâ€™ve both fully recovered for their senior season and have become Chapmanâ€™s two aces.
NICK AGRO
,
STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Kevin Osaki and Travis McGee pitched together, lived together and took classes together.

But finding out each had torn their ulnar collateral ligament, an elbow injury, was one thing they didn’t want to share.

It was 2012, toward the end of their junior baseball seasons at Chapman. Feeling pain in their right elbows, the right-handers went to the doctor together and walked out with the same diagnosis. Surgery loomed and they would miss the entire 2013 season. It would be the longest either had been away from the mound, but they had each other.

“We just kind of knew that we were in it for the long haul,” Osaki said.

Rehab is a waiting game.

Enduring a yearlong recovery process, Osaki and McGee had to forget the level they were accustomed to training at. They had to reteach muscle memory to their arms and accept the time it took for their body to relearn those movements.

Recovering from Tommy John surgery, the medical procedure for a UCL reconstruction, the pair began rehab at the same site.

They were given dozens of exercises to rebuild strength and range of motion in the arm, particularly the shoulder.

The pair would spend more than two hours a day, several times a week, doing six to eight monotonous exercises over and over: Forearm curls, elbow extension, wrist flexion and more.

“It seems like (when) you watch someone do it, it doesn’t look like it’s tiring, but when you do it, it’s really, really tiring,” McGee said.

More painful, though, was watching Chapman struggle.

Osaki and McGee, who helped Chapman reach the Division III national championship game in 2011, sat by as Chapman failed to make the playoffs in 2013. It was the Panthers’ first losing season since 1995.

“You lose two guys like that, it’s just hard to overcome,” Chapman coach Scott Laverty said. “Maybe one, but to lose both of those guys, who are both like aces on a staff, you see why things went the way they did last year.”

Each felt somewhat powerless in being unable to help their team.

“You just were watching them play, and all you could do is sit there and you know you couldn’t do anything about it,” McGee said.

With an increase in training each month, each would feel tweaks and sometimes hear pops and cracks in their elbows.

Afraid that a pop meant reinjury or a backtracking in progress, the two would assure each other that their bodies were just adjusting to the exercises.

“Just kind of telling each other like, ‘Hey, it’s nothing to worry about,’” Osaki said. “If you feel something, just kind of say, ‘Hey. Just take care of it man, don’t try to push through it.’”

“You have somebody that’s supporting you, somebody you can kind of like bounce your thoughts off of and you know that he’s in the exact same place you are mentally, physically and everything,” Osaki added.

Finally throwing again for the first time, both found out quickly their skills weren’t going to come back all at once. Especially Osaki.

“The first ball I threw, I threw it about 10 feet straight into the ground in front of me,” he said, laughing. “It was kind of funny because all the guys were watching on.”

Both were just happy to be throwing again, pain-free.

Now fifth-year seniors, the duo has returned to the mound this season.

Their confidence has also returned. Because injuries can chip away at a player’s self-esteem, tackling the fear of not being as good of a player as one once was is just as critical as physical recovery.

It’s clear the two pitchers have overcome those doubts.

McGee ranks third in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference with a 2.42 earned-run average and leads the league in total strikeouts with 66, as of press deadline.

Against the University of Dallas, he struck out a career-high 13 in his first career shutout and first complete game effort since 2012.

Osaki is tied for sixth in SCIAC in total strikeouts with 51, as of press deadline. He picked up his first win since returning from surgery against the University of Redlands.

Pitching into the eighth inning, his longest outing of the year, Osaki allowed just two runs.

“I don’t think anybody’s deeper than us,” Laverty said of his pitching staff. “There’s some good pitchers in the SCIAC, but there’s definitely nobody that’s as deep as we are.”

The return of Osaki and McGee has helped the Panthers get back to the win column.

By April 19, Chapman had already surpassed last year’s 18-21 (.462) dismal record with a 25-10 (.714) record.

By that point, Chapman extended its winning streak to nine games, its longest since 2011.

Neither think about the injury when they’re pitching. But in icing after the game, making sure their elbows feel as strong as possible, they’re reminded of a lesson from the injury: Never take an inning for granted.

“You definitely want to make sure that you’re ready to go and you don’t take it for granted,” Osaki said. “Because your body is not always going to hold up, as strong as you may think you are.”

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